Suffer the Children Read Online Free

heartburn. “I thought that was dead.”
    Otis lit his own cigarette and waved the match. “It’s alive, and it’s here.” His face turned an alarming shade of red as he coughed long and hard into his fist. “Better get used to it, Doug. They’ll be delivered in the early part of the year. We should be seeing the first vehicles on the road by springtime.”
    Every day, Doug worked his ass off as part of a two-man sanitation crew—one man driving the truck, the other dumping trash into the rearof the rig, where it was compacted. The new Whitley trucks that the County wanted side-loaded waste using automatic lifts. The rig had a mechanical claw that grabbed the garbage can and dumped its contents right into the hopper.
    It sounded great—unless you were a sanitation worker hoping to keep your job during a time of shrinking budgets. The automatic rigs needed only one man to operate them.
    When Joan had gotten pregnant with Nate, Doug had sworn he’d do anything to provide for his family. He became a waste collector. At the time, he’d thought it was one of the safest professions on the planet. Sure, it was a tough and dirty job, but everybody needed it done, a good union protected it, and it couldn’t be offshored.
    He’d never anticipated that a new type of garbage truck might make him obsolete.
    Spring was only four months away.
    He stood, suddenly filled with nervous energy that he didn’t know what to do with. “Shit, Otis. What about my job?”
    “Sit down, Doug. Nobody’s going to lose his job. The County will reduce head count through normal attrition. Guys move, others retire, and they won’t be replaced. That’s it.”
    Doug expressed his skepticism for that news with a snort. Whatever the politicians had told his boss, when it came to budget cuts, they had a way of changing their minds once they smelled blood.
    Otis planted his elbows on his desk. “Look, that’s what they’re saying, okay? Don’t go telling people otherwise, Doug. I don’t need a goddamn panic.”
    “I don’t gossip like some schoolgirl, Otis. But I will be checking with the union to see what kind of guarantees the County is offering in writing. I got mouths to feed at home.”
    “You’re not seeing the big picture here. Why is there always a conspiracy theory with you? You got to look on the bright side.”
    “Yeah?” Doug asked, mean face in full effect. “And what’s that?”
    “Sanitation is being revolutionized,” said Otis, as if it were a fast-moving, glamorous field. “Faster, cheaper, better. Trash pickup at athousand homes a day, and the driver never leaves the cab. If the garbage isn’t in the bin, it stays where it is. No rain, no rats, no stink.”
    Otis looked almost wistful about it. Doug guessed the man wished he had these rigs during the thirty-five years he’d spent hauling garbage in the rain and snow.
    It was sad to witness. Otis had been a hairy son of a bitch back in the day, a hard drinker and a bar fighter, but now he just looked worn out, ready to retire himself. Doug always thought he’d end up just like him, marking time on a calendar in some crappy office and managing the next generation of hairy SOBs. He wondered now if he’d even get that privilege, thanks to the Whitley trucks.
    What was he going to do if he lost his job? How would he face Joan and the kids, who depended on him? The very thought made him grind his teeth. What good was a man who couldn’t provide for his own?
    Doug had grown up in hard times. He’d known hunger as a child—not the I-wish-I-had-more-treats bullshit but real, gut-gnawing hunger. His biggest wish was to give Nate and Megan the childhood he didn’t have and, he hoped, a chance at a decent future.
    His kids came first. They would always come first.
    “See?” Otis asked. “Change isn’t all bad. There’s a huge upside to this.”
    “Yeah, it’s a bold new era in picking up other people’s shit,” Doug said with mock enthusiasm. He stabbed his